North Bay newspaper pronounces Hillary Clinton a winner

Correspondent Neil Davis of Sebastopol sent word that the Nov. 9 issue of the North Bay Bohemian Weekly, which obviously went to press before the election, celebrated Hillary Clinton’s win over Donald Trump.

Editor Stett Holbrook dealt with it straight on in a Department of Corrections item that ran the following week, saying that election day polls had shown “Clinton running away with the win.” The editorial writers “thought she was going to win and the story reflects that. ... We jumped the gun — or drank the Kool-Aid. We will rue the error — and the turn of events — for the next four years.” It was a simple, elegant admission of error.

It was preceded in the Letters to the Editor column by comments from a sly reader:

“Traumatized by Tuesday’s election results, I failed to pick up the Boho until Friday. Imagine my relief. On the basis of a massive disinformation campaign probably funded by the Koch Brothers and Putin, I had incorrectly believed that He Who Cannot Be Named actually won the American presidency. ... Thank you for having the courage to be the only newspaper on the planet to print the truth.

“I have a small favor to ask, though. Could you recheck your sources? I have it on good information that Jill Stein actually won.”

If you’re a sailor or an onshore scanner of the briny depths, watch out for Lia Ditton, who for the next year or so will be rowing her way around the Bay Area. And that’s just practice.

British-born Ditton is a professional captain of power- and sailboats. She’s also an ocean rower, whose past feats have included rowing across the Atlantic. In 2018, she’s hoping to be the first woman to row, solo and unaccompanied, from Japan to San Francisco.

In preparation for that feat, she’ll be making test forays around here, for example, rowing out into the Pacific when bad weather is forecast to see if she can make it through a storm. She’s also been speaking around the Bay Area — rowing to San Francisco from the Alameda Yacht Club for a speaking engagement at the St. Francis Yacht Club — gathering sponsors for the adventure.

She’s hoping to set out with a list of sponsors’ names for $20 one-mile segments of the row. Focusing on those names and those supporters, she says, will help with the “hardest thing: the day-in, day-out grind.” Ditton says she is “not just rowing to achieve a world record. I’m rowing to inspire women to pursue their dreams.”

• When nothing but the best stocking stuffer will do: On eBay, dollar bills hand-signed by candidate Donald Trump (“at a rally,” says one; “at Trump Tower,” says another) are selling for a huge range of prices, from $39.99 to $475. The most expensive one is described as showing “usage and has signs of some aging. No rips or tears.” In Trumpland this is shabby chic.

•Susan Jackson is planning to attend the Million Woman March in Washington, D.C., wearing a homemade banner/sash on which she wants to name women who are unable to attend. She has 250 names and is hoping for 1,000. Email susjcks5@aol.com to get your name added.

Photographer Lynne Redding’s new book is “Ed Mock and Company Dance,” featuring photos taken between 1980 and 1984 of the San Francisco dancer-performance artist who died of AIDS in 1986. Its introduction is by Burr Snider, who first met Mock taking classes from him, and later profiled him for the Examiner.

Mock told Snider that he avoided having a planned idea of how performances pieces would go. “It’s all in the moment. It’s all being generated right there onstage. ... It all just comes down to taking your craziness and channeling it. Using something that maybe you saw on the street that upset you. As an artist, you have a duty to comment on these things if you have a gift to do it. And listen, if I didn’t get that stuff out of me, I would be very hostile.”

Leah Garchik washed up on the shores of Fifth and Mission in 1972, began her duties as a part-time temporary steno clerk, and has done everything around The Chronicle including washing the dishes (her coffee cup). Over the years, she has served as writer, reviewer, editor and columnist. She is the author of two books, “San Francisco: Its Sights and Secrets” and “Real Life Romance."

She is an avid knitter, a terrible accordion player, a sporadic tweeter and a pretty good speller.